Tag Archives: US aid to Egypt

CAIRO (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi’s pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250 million in American aid to support the country’s “future as a democracy.”

Yet Kerry also served notice that the Obama administration will keep close watch on how Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt’s first freely elected president, honors his commitment and that additional U.S. assistance would depend on it.

“The path to that future has clearly been difficult and much work remains,” Kerry said in a statement after wrapping up two days of meetings in Egypt, a deeply divided country in the wake of the revolution that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt is trying to meet conditions to close on a $4.8 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund. An agreement would unlock more of the $1 billion in U.S. assistance promised by President Barack Obama last year and set to begin flowing with Kerry’s announcement.

“The United States can and wants to do more,” Kerry said. “Reaching an agreement with the IMF will require further effort on the part of the Egyptian government and broad support for reform by all Egyptians. When Egypt takes the difficult steps to strengthen its economy and build political unity and justice, we will work with our Congress at home on additional support.”

Kerry cited Egypt’s “extreme needs” and Morsi’s “assurances that he plans to complete the IMF process” when he told the president that the U.S. would provide $190 million of a long-term $450 million pledge “in a good-faith effort to spur reform and help the Egyptian people at this difficult time.” The release of the rest of the $450 million and the other $550 million tranche of the $1 billion that Obama announced will be tied to successful reforms, officials said.

A video disseminated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) should blow a giant hole in the fantasy the Obama administration refers to as their Muslim “outreach” initiative. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is shown in 2010 delivering an anti-Semitic diatribe, during which he referred to “the Zionists” as “bloodsuckers,” “warmongers,” and “the descendants of apes and pigs.” He also called for “military resistance within the land of Palestine,” further noting that the PLO “was created by the Zionist and American enemies.”

The tape is a compilation of excerpts from two different interviews given by Morsi on March 20 and September 23 in 2010. MEMRI discovered the footage, translated it, and combined it into the aforementioned video. Morsi was a member of the Guidance Office of the Muslim Brotherhood when he delivered the remarks. “The Zionists have no right to the land of Palestine,” he said March 20. “There is no place for them on the land of Palestine. What they took before 1947-8 constitutes plundering, and what they are doing now is a continuation of this plundering. By no means do we recognize their Green Line. The land of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, not to the Zionists.”

He was sure to include the United States in the mix as well. “We must confront this Zionist entity. All ties of all kinds must be severed with this plundering criminal entity, which is supported by America and its weapons, as well as by its own nuclear weapons, the existence of which is well known. It will bring about their own destruction. The peoples must boycott this entity and avoid normalization of relations with it. All products from countries supporting this entity–from the U.S. and others–must be boycotted.”

Such a boycott must be quite selective. Beginning January 22, Egypt is scheduled to receive the first installment of 10 F-16 fighter jets and 200 Abrams tanks from the United States as part of a $213 million foreign aid package originally promised to former president Hosni Mubarak. Morsi hasn’t cancelled it. Neither has the Obama administration, despite Mubarak’s ouster. Such seeming indifference by Obama has engendered increasing criticism, with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) circulating a petition that has garnered more than 150,000 signatures. “A Shariah dictatorship on Israel’s border–armed with American weapons–is a deadly threat to Israel and America,” it reads. “All U.S. funding to Egypt must be cut off until we can certify that aid to Egypt will help the national security interests of the United States and Israel.”

Anti-American protests that started in Cairo and spread across the Muslim world have stalled negotiations to provide crucial U.S. economic assistance to Egypt, U.S. officials said Monday.

The violent demonstrations sparked by an anti-Islam video, and Egypt’s initially clumsy response, have temporarily halted talks about a proposed $1 billion in debt relief and how to speed millions in other aid to Egypt, according to several U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.

No new aid is likely to be approved for Egypt until after the U.S. presidential election, and talks aimed at breaking a logjam on spending funds already approved are on hold, the officials said. Several U.S. officials said that the delays are expected to be temporary and that there is no major reevaluation of U.S. aid to Egypt.

“Folks are going to wait and see how things materialize both with the protests and on Capitol Hill,” a congressional aide said.

The roughly $1.5 billion in annual U.S. aid to Egypt represents crucial economic assistance to a nation the United States has long considered an essential Arab partner — despite recent concerns about the new government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition to that assistance, President Obama has proposed $1 billion in debt relief for Egypt, which owes Washington about $3 billion.

In the aftermath of the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year, Congress attached conditions to U.S. aid, including a requirement that the State Department certify that Egypt is abiding by its peace treaty with Israel. Now some lawmakers are talking about adding more conditions.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee called a hearing this week to examine U.S. relations with Egypt, but it was canceled Monday after the State Department declined to provide witnesses, committee spokesman Steve Sutton said.

A senior congressional staffer suggested that the course of events in the next couple of weeks will determine the long-term fate of U.S. assistance to Egypt. Other U.S. officials cast the delay as a natural reaction to the violence and a test of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s resolve, but they stressed that the United States is unlikely to set stringent conditions on aid or debt relief.

“We are continuing to work with the Hill on the support that we think is important to support those very forces of moderation, change, democracy, openness in Egypt that are very important for defeating extremism of the kind that we saw,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday.

Nuland said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would talk to Congress soon about U.S. aid and other issues affected by the protests.

Anti-American protests near the U.S. Embassy in Egypt stretched from Tuesday until Saturday last week, with many demonstrators calling for the U.S. ambassador to be tossed out of the country.

Just days before protests erupted outside the fortress-like embassy compound, American and Egyptian officials had been in the final stages of negotiating the details of assistance that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

A delegation of 120 U.S. business leaders was in Cairo at the time of the protest as part of a related State Department effort to drum up foreign investment, which Egypt needs badly to help its economy recover.

U.S. and Egyptian officials had hoped to resolve much of the debt relief plan by the end of this month, but U.S. and other officials said those discussions are now likely to drag on through the fall. Any new congressional action on Egypt will have to wait, too, because Congress adjourns next week until after the Nov. 6 election.

Last week, we sent out an urgent Action Alert asking you to register opposition to any kind of taxpayer funded assistance for either Egypt or Libya. We did this to send a message that we will not reward countries that do not prevent or forcibly condemn attacks on our embassies. We will not accept delayed and weak responses to those heinous attacks by the leadership of those countries.As we noted in a follow-up e-mail, the calls have been coming in and your voice is being heard by those that represent you in Washington, DC. This is what grassroots strength is all about and again we thank you.
First, we have good news to report. Yesterday’s Washington Post reports that the violent anti-American protests in Egypt and elsewhere have “temporarily halted talks about a proposed $1 billion in debt relief and how to speed millions in other aid to Egypt, according to several U.S. officials.” See the full article HERE.
That said, it has been reported that later this week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be up on Capitol Hill to ask legislators to continue sending the billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid (YOUR hard-earned taxpayer dollars) to Egypt and other countries exhibiting violent protests against our embassies.To counter Secretary Clinton’s funding pitch to the U.S. Congress, we are asking you to once again place calls to the federal legislators listed below. We ask that you register your opposition to any U.S. tax dollars being sent to these countries that are currently hostile toward our nation. Let them know that you do not support funding our enemies.** ACTION ITEM **
Please take a moment once today to call the numbers listed below.
Tell these federal legislators respectfully, but firmly, that you are opposed to U.S. taxpayer dollars going toward ANYmilitary funding for Egypt or Libya until they demonstrate that they are true allies of the United States.

House

Speaker John Boehner

202-225-0600

Majority Leader Eric Cantor

202-225-2815

Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy

202-225-2915

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

202-225-0100

Minority Whip Steny Hoyer

202-225-4131

Rep. Harold Rogers, Chair House Appropriations Committee

202-225-2771

Rep. Norm Dicks, Ranking Member House Appropriations Committee

202-225-3481

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chair House Foreign Affairs Committee

202-225-5021

Rep. Howard Berman, Ranking Member House Foreign Affairs Committee

202-226-8467

Senate

Majority Leader Harry Reid

202-224-3542

Majority Whip Richard Durbin

202-224-9447

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

202-224-3135

Minority Whip Jon Kyl

202-224-2708

Sen. Daniel Inouye, Chair Senate Appropriations Committee

202-224-7363

Sen. Thad Cochran, Ranking Member Senate Appropriations Committee

202-224-7257

Sen. John Kerry, Chair Senate Foreign Relations Committee

202-224-4651

Sen. Richard Lugar, Ranking Member Senate Foreign Relations Committee

202-224-6797

REMEMBER, YOUR VOICE COUNTS! IF EACH OF US DOES JUST A LITTLE, TOGETHER WE CAN ACCOMPLISH A LOT!

Press release: On 4/17/12 Sen. Rand Paul took to the Senate floor to re-introduce his proposed amendment to eliminate foreign aid to Egypt until the Egyptian government ceases the prosecution of U.S. citizens. The amendment also recoups the bail money paid to free the American pro-democracy workers last month.

TRANSCRIPT:

I rise today to introduce an amendment that would end aid to Egypt until they end the prosecution of our U.S. citizens. I offered this amendment earlier this spring when Egypt was detaining our citizens, these pro-democracy workers and was not letting them leave the country.

Since then they have let them leave the country but sort of in an insulting fashion, in the sense that they have let them leave when we had to pay basically ransom. We had to pay about $5 million in ransom. $300,000 per person to let them leave Egypt.

So they came home and Egypt still could only get paid if the administration certified they were pro-democracy. Within days Secretary Clinton released the said aid and said they were achieving their democratic goals.

I wrote a letter to Secretary Clinton and asked her not to do this because the prosecution still goes on. These American citizens that were allowed to leave the country had to pay $300,000 in bail but had to sign a statement saying they’re coming back for the trial.

Everybody signed of said I doubt they’re ever going back to Egypt for those show trials, but then it gets worse. It turns out that in December of last year President Obama signed an Executive order – this is order 135-24 – that gives Interpol, the international police organization, gives them immunity in our country.

We also have an extradition treaty with Egypt meaning if you’re accused of a crime in Egypt, we can send you back. The danger is, are these pro-democracy workers safe in the United States? You have Interpol agents in the United States who now have immunity; we have an extradition treaty with Egypt.

There are definitely problems to allowing this to go on. This is an indication to me that maybe Egypt is not pursuing democratic goals and maybe certifying them as a democratic country is not in our best interest and maybe sending nearly $2 billion of taxpayer money to Egypt who continues to prosecute our citizens is not a good idea.

I’ll give you an example of what Interpol is doing. Interpol recently took a Saudi journalist from Malaysia and sent him back to Saudi Arabia. Do you know what the crime was? They were accused of blasphemy. They were accused of a religious crime of apostasy. Do you know what if penalty is? The death penalty.

So we’re now using the international police agency to go into a sovereign nation; someone is accused of a religious crime and sent back to a country where they can be put to death. This alarms me. People say that could never happen in America.

Well, right now the President has allowed Interpol through an Executive order through the President’s signature, has allowed interpol to have diplomatic immunity in our country.

Some so for all I know Interpol could be at this very moment looking for American citizens in this country and trying to get those people and extradite them back to Egypt. This is a problem. This is why you don’t want an international police force to operate within your sovereign nation. There can be cooperation but you don’t want impunity and immunity for an international police force within your borders.

So I will introduce again an amendment to this bill, and this amendment will say no aid to Egypt until they end this prosecution. No aid to Egypt until they end these red letter warrants that they ask on U.S. citizens to be extradited back to Egypt. We can’t allow U.S. citizens to be sent to a foreign country to be tried in a country where blasphemy is a crime.

Those are not American values; those are not American ways, and we can’t allow U.S. citizens to be subject to foreign laws and foreign crimes. So I will ask today for a vote on an amendment that will end Egyptian aid or at least delay Egyptian foreign aid until they relinquish this persecution of our citizens.